Oscar Prognosticators Face a New World Order

Anne Thompson
·3 min read
4

It’s fun to throw out old assumptions. It used to be understood that the Critics Choice Award nominations were a better predictor of future Oscar nominations than the stodgy 90-member Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). That may no longer be true.

Fact is, the new 300-member Golden Globes boasts more critics and is more international than the 608-member Critics Choice Association (CCA). Of this group of mostly entertainment reporters (radio, television, online, and print), 73 are international, and most of them live in the United States, and according to the press release sharing today’s winners, they still tout themselves as historically “the most accurate predictor of Academy Award nominations.” (Disclaimer: I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association.)

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This year, it’s likely that Neon’s popular French-language courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall” (almost $8 million worldwide, even without being the French Oscar submission over “The Taste of Things”) and Jonathan Glazer’s U.K. German-language Oscar entry “The Zone of Interest” (December 15, A24) will both earn multiple Oscar nominations.

You wouldn’t know that from the CCA nominations. While “Anatomy of a Fall” landed two acting slots (Actress Sandra Hüller and Young Actor Milo Machado Graner), both films were otherwise sequestered in the CCA’s foreign-language category.

Oscar voters passing the 20-percent international mark has led to foreign-language films excelling in multiple categories over the past few years, from Best Picture winner “Parasite” to “Roma,” “Drive My Car,” “Another Round,” “Flee,” “The Worst Person in the World,” and last year’s “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which took home four Oscars.

CCA members remain more mainstream than the Globes, and thus represent those voters in the Academy (mostly the executives, producers, publicists, and members-at-large branches). So it’s no surprise that “Barbie,” with an additional comedy category and three song nods, dominated the field with 18. Diverging from the Globes, the CCAs offered musical “The Color Purple” five nominations (Picture, Supporting Actress Danielle Brooks, Best Acting Ensemble, Costume Design, Hair and Makeup), three for Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn” (Picture, Cinematography, Production Design), without any acting nods, and Ben Affleck’s “Air” (Acting Ensemble, Original Screenplay, and Editing), and two for “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” (Best Young Actress Abby Ryder Fortson and Best Adapted Screenplay for Kelly Fremon Craig).

OPPENHEIMER, Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, 2023. © Universal Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
“Oppenheimer”©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection

Steady as they go are strong Oscar contenders “Oppenheimer” and “Poor Things” (13 CCA nominations each), “Killers of the Flower Moon” (12), “Maestro” and “The Holdovers” (8), “American Fiction” (five) and “Past Lives” with three (Best Picture, Actress Greta Lee, and Original Screenplay for Celine Song). Lee recently accepted the Best Actress award at the December 4 CCA Celebration of Cinema and Television, honoring Black, Latino and AAPI Achievements. CCA nominees Jeffrey Wright, Colman Domingo, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Charles Melton also took awards that night.

The Screen Actors Guild nominations will tell the tale of how popular “May December” really is: it landed three CCA nods but missed Globe Comedy nominee Natalie Portman; “Nyad” scored a Supporting Actress nod for Jodie Foster but no Annette Bening; “Wonka” managed two nods (Best Young Actor for Calah Lane and Costume Design); and “Napoleon” scored one (Costume Design). And like the Globes, “Ferrari” was not mentioned at all.

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